D&D General What are the "dead settings" of D&D?

[Urriak Uruk]

5E will do the planes, but it remains to be seen how. It could be a revival of Planescape, or it could be something more like Magic's planeswalker thing, or it could be Spelljammer, or maybe a cap-system Manual of the Planes with options for all three, and further development of whatever proves most popular. But the planes are iconic enough to be a sure-thing.

Honestly not the worst idea. It would be one nutty book for sure, to combine Spelljammer, Planescape, and Planeswalking into one metasetting ruleset.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Honestly not the worst idea. It would be one nutty book for sure, to combine Spelljammer, Planescape, and Planeswalking into one metasetting ruleset.

How would that system even work? They are vastly different systems of getting to different worlds, and different kinds of worlds.

Spelljammer is basically sailing through space to get to other solar systems.

Planescape is "teleporting" to other planes of existence, and sometimes taking a door linked to Sigil to another D&D world, like Krynn.

Planeswalking is mechanically similar to Planescape, but with M:tG worlds.

 

[Lanefan]

Europe has 44 nations (according to the UN), which includes city-states and small countries like Lichtenstein, Andorra, Monaco, Vatican City, San Marino, Malta, and Luxembourg.

Wanna make a guess how many countries, territories, and city-states that Faerûn has? You are welcome to count them all up yourself, but I have more productive things to do with my time.

Someone (you?) said there were 27 realms or something, I was using that as a comparison.

Sure, it depends on how fine-tuned you want the various write-ups to be, but I would assume that fans of FR would want sufficiently useful write-ups so as to be utilitarian for actually running a game in the setting plus some other DM and/or player-side goodies and a sample adventure included.

Depends what "sufficiently useful" consists of, I suppose.

Compare the late-1e-era boxed set with the 3e-era book. The box-set has a map with lots of blank space, and books with write-ups in just enough detail to give an idea of what goes where; with the rest being left to each individual DM to fill in as needed.

The 3e-era book's already got more detail than it needs and fills in far too much blank space on the maps.

In-depth town-by-town details are complete overkill.

So, what does it need by rough page count?

First, fold-out maps - plural - detached from the book itself. One of the whole thing, a zoom-in of the Sword Coast area, a zoom-in of the Shadowdale area, and maybe a city map of Waterdeep.

A general overview and introduction to the setting - 10 pages (all page counts include art)

Some details as to various guilds and factions within the Realms (Harpers, Red Wizards, etc.) - 10 pages.

A couple of somewhat-detailed write-ups of realms, as samples for DMs to follow if they like (maybe Thay and Shadowdale?) - 20 pages each, so 40 total.

A sample adventure - 10 pages.

We're up to 70 pages in the book thus far; leaving 250 for everything else assuming a 320-count total is the goal. At an average of 5 pages each that's 50 write-ups you could fit in there, be they of cities, realms, or whatever; a couple could be dropped in favour of short one-page write-ups of up to ten key NPCs.

Note that a separate map of each element being written up - other than the sample two - does NOT appear in the book; merely a grid reference to where it can be found on the fold-out map(s).

What did I miss?

 

[Urriak Uruk]

How would that system even work? They are vastly different systems of getting to different worlds, and different kinds of worlds.

Spelljammer is basically sailing through space to get to other solar systems.

Planescape is "teleporting" to other planes of existence, and sometimes taking a door linked to Sigil to another D&D world, like Krynn.

Planeswalking is mechanically similar to Planescape, but with M:tG worlds.

Well Planescape and Spelljammer already work side-by-side, just as you describe. The planeswalking is the added wrinkle, largely some reconciliating as to why a Planeswalker from Greyhawk has never popped into Theros or vice-versa.

For me, the answer is "keep it simple," and just say, "Oh yeah there are planeswalkers that have come from Greyhawk. They just think they're powerful sorcerors born with the ability to planeshift naturally." Or something like that.

 

[Hoffmand]

How would that system even work? They are vastly different systems of getting to different worlds, and different kinds of worlds.

Spelljammer is basically sailing through space to get to other solar systems.

Planescape is "teleporting" to other planes of existence, and sometimes taking a door linked to Sigil to another D&D world, like Krynn.

Planeswalking is mechanically similar to Planescape, but with M:tG worlds.

Worked for the new Star TreK

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Worked for the new Star TreK

I'm not a trekker, or whatever you call yourselves.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Well Planescape and Spelljammer already work side-by-side, just as you describe. The planeswalking is the added wrinkle, largely some reconciliating as to why a Planeswalker from Greyhawk has never popped into Theros or vice-versa.

I don't see any way that you could combine Planescape and Spelljammer in a way that the community would be happy. Also, you'd have to severely change the lore to do so.

Also, Spelljammer and Planescape don't work hand in hand. They're not meant to accomplish the same things. A Neogi Deathspider ship can't planeshift to Acheron, or teleport to Innistrad. That's just not how the systems work. Planeswalkers would never come from Greyhawk, that's not how the lore works.

For me, the answer is "keep it simple," and just say, "Oh yeah there are planeswalkers that have come from Greyhawk. They just think they're powerful sorcerors born with the ability to planeshift naturally." Or something like that.

Planeswalkers are born with a "spark" to planeshift. That's not something that works in D&D settings or adventures without making some serious plot convenience tricks. The best way to keep it simple is to have these 3 systems not intersect anymore than they already do. Planeswalkers don't interact with any of the other 2 systems. Planescape and Spelljammer barely intersect. The fact that you can Plane Shift to a city named Sigil that can have a magical door-portal to Dark Sun or Eberron doesn't show that they intersect in any way. It's easier to travel to Dark Sun from Realmspace through the Phlogiston, and I'd imagine WotC knows this if they ever make a Spelljammer or Planescape book.

 

[Parmandur]

And yet they’ve done it 4x.

They definitely could do it again, and I wouldn't complain, but it doesn't seem likely right now.

 

[Aldarc]

Someone (you?) said there were 27 realms or something, I was using that as a comparison.

I began counting and then lost interest in counting the rest, stopping at around 27 with plenty left.

What did I miss?

A reason/hook for people who don't plan on running the Realms to buy it. How does it expand the available rules or tools for D&D 5e?

 

[Mercurius]

@AcererakTriple6 , just about anything is possible if we aren't fused to the traditional version. Didn't 4E say that spelljammers navigated the Astral Sea? The Astral Sea could connect all worlds and planes. A spelljammer could sail it to get to other solar systems (crystal spheres) within the Prime Material Plane, and then through gates into other planes. Sort of like the idea that there's only really one ocean, just different sections of it.

The idea I suggested above allows, even encourages, DMs to construct their own hybrid. There could be a default, but each DM could modify it to how they want to construct their cosmology.